Picking up Silver and Gold
by Kuro Guardian
Summary: The promise of a lifetime finds Kakashi literally picking up the pieces when Naruto's mind comes asunder. Can he endure the horror or will he find himself a liar?
1. Prologue

The door is open, or rather there use to be a door. At this point in time an unfortunate slab of wood lies cattycorner to a splintered doorway. You don't even have to be an experienced shinobi never mind Anbu ( ex or active) to know this is Bad. In fact this reek of Bad, an invisible odor layered between that of standing water and poorly dried laundry. Kakashi shifts uncomfortably a china dish mask in hand. "Naruto?"

Blinking the sliver-haired man takes his courage in both hands (or rather reckons what Tsunade will do if he continues to stand here) and enters. Shivers feeling the echoes of something old and in pain; perhaps the residue of decades of despair and quiet desperation. 'Naruto.' The tiny allotment of space is dark and damp - floor an inch submerged. There is a glow only a foot ahead; a cool, pale lavender he can't ignore. 'Stupid.' But he touches it, motorized body scrunched into a graceful crouch.

Foolish and for a moment he is gone replaced by a scent like blood in the mouth and a sudden absence of air. Returning he ungracefully land on his ass scrambling away from the now apparently lifeless marble before him. Kakashi is terrified obviously, yet like a manikin dispossessed he stills before returning to himself. Single eye closed he sighs and in the darker comers of the space a picture tips over as laughter, bitter laughter is almost felt. The throaty-something strangles its self off in mid mumble trying not to howl. "A good guy promise Naruto. Remember in Wave? 'I will protect you with my life'." Laughter ghostly and a soft glowing further in.


	2. Chapter 2

There isn't a need for weaponry where he's going so he off loads on the soon to be moldering couch. Sighing he wonders if anyone really cares about Naruto. Wonders further if Naruto is only as important as the next catastrophe he defers. Decides he as least is masking up for such as he places the first of what promises to be many such orbs in his primary weapons pouch. Shrugging he removes his mask and licks salty lips, carefully he doesn't think about Naruto kissing him in that strange in-between place of memory and thought and partial madness.

'Damn sensei.' Blinking Kakashi turns to the new glow knowing there are many of these scattered about Kohona though only a few here. It does nothing for his nerves to wonder how he knows so he thankfully doesn't except of course a little because he is human after all. Stalling, he knows he's stalling and the minute he admits that he bending down to take up the orb.

…

It is an enormous place - the ceiling somewhere around heaven and the lights above. It appears white, but somehow he knows this is a lie. "Kai." The surroundings do not even waver though around him he feels amusement. Suddenly she stands beside him unabashedly naked flesh gorgeous, scent wild. Golden hair carelessly flecked with blood - its stark the unnatural red. "Who are you little man? How dare you come here boy?" Her teeth are sharp and perfectly white against her flawless skin - brown and smelling sweet. Her hand a throbbing presence against his belly. "Speak now or in silence sleep." Rather deep voice for a woman, but fine as fuck yeah…

"Where is he? My student?" They sit in the woods grass brushing her thighs, his calves and he knows this is not good. Gently she pushes him to his knees on the cool leaf-carpeted ground. Straddling him she taunts him with her firm, full, perky breasts. Honeyed aureoles and a fine peach bottom he cups despite himself. As suddenly he lies beneath her naked both eyes memorizing her but only the right really seeing her. Horror. Moving to shove her off but only lifting her over his throbbing prick.

Not able to scream as she laughs slick with the juices of putrefaction. Riding him offal-caked hand in his -blond- hair, maggot-ridden lips on his. Oh, god it feels so good and Kakashi is only just realizing the horror of that statement. "Yes, wet-dreams sponsored by and starred in by the damnable Kyuubi cunt." The thirteen-year-old Naruto was leans casually against a tree. "I told no one preferring cold streams and showers or long dizzy nights of studying the endless sky."

The boy sits on a dresser as Kakashi splits open the corpse boy's legs. One a mangled parody of a limb he shrugs over one lean shoulder. Obito only stares as the demon bastard scoots up behind Kakashi gleefully raping his mind. "You're a special treat sensei. My dreams are fairly vanilla - blood, pain, betrayal, and rape. You give the Kyuubi more interesting things to do and experience. Interesting enough we both dream of Uchiha."

…

Sicking up on the water-logged wood Kakashi decides he's going to steal every sleep devoted hour Naruto has until he finds the perfect dreamless sleep aid. Well, that or he's taking this particular problem to Kohona's loyal sannin. Absurdly glad he ditched the mask to begin with the shaken pervert briefly wonders if Jiraiya already knows. Blinking blandly he decides he doesn't need to know right now if ever. With a shrug he stands the marble in his hand disappearing into the pouch. Cracking his neck he enters the dismal kitchen area.

Sitting beside the overturned table is another orb glowing softly. Hesitating Kakashi thinks of being sexually-tormented by the thrice-damned nine-tailed fox. Thinks of Gai and a chakra-sucking sword wielder dead with a broken neck. Thinks of Lee and a surgery with a 1 in 2 chance of death. Breathes. Exhales. Reaches for the goddamn trap. Hesitates. Snatches it with a laugh.

It rains. Pours down with thunder so hard and close it roars through his chest. For a moment he remembers a battlefield covered in flames and snow his chidori gloved hand circling to cut the lightening in half. Lightening and a man burdened with something walks unsteadily toward a decrepit warehouse-like structure, His hair is black and would be an utter bird nest if not for the drenching rain - a rain so profuse he's all but drowning in it.

The man enters and Kakashi sits upon a dusty box watching the man unwrap the pieces reverently. Not even aware enough to scream he watches the head open sleepy eyes and look up into the man's eyes. "Father." How the head speaks doesn't bear thinking, besides it calls the man father. The man squats running twig-like fingers through a mass of blood-stained hair. "Oh, you blessed fool look what you've done! I can't fix this child."

Momentarily Kakashi realizes he's hard as a fucking rock from the man's voice. Worse the man seems to see him the rest of this world gone still, even the endless rain. "Do you have any idea how long I've lived?" The man's hands are a heavy weight on his shoulders, the warmth wonderful. "So long Hatake, so very long. I've watched humanity rise and fall and rise again like a plague returns to run it's course." Feeling his balls tighten Kakashi moans, "Your voice, how the hell -?"

Laughter and Kakashi comes with a shiver head thrown back against a firm belly. "I get so bored beloved. So I play funny little games - like this : a pointedly normal face and decent body coupled with a voice like sex." Whimpering the jounin buries his flushed face against the more then decent abdomen. "The head called you father." Yes, but it's obvious - children can amaze and for a creature plagued by boredom amusement is a welcomed commodity indeed. "Yes, I started a family and watched it fracture, crumble, and die each child a waste so that I might feel something." Sighing, "Orochimaru is a fool because hell is apathy - is an eternity without meaning."

…

Feeling a cool, stickiness sliding down his thighs the Copy-cat nin sighs. 'This is getting ridiculous.' Standing he wonders if there is anything to raid from Naruto's closet. Shaking his head he decides to play it by ear. Speaking of which - he listens carefully hearing an almost unbearably high sound, something like what a singing crystal might sound like. It comes from the right but he has one more light to dim within this dilapidated space. Carefully, sullenly Kakashi walks into the bathroom and takes the object from the filth-filled sink. Ignoring the blood-splattered mirror the shinobi tightens his fist activating the sphere.

…

Roaring he slams the bastard's head into the wall again too intent to hear the cracking bones or liquid sound of a brain being pulverized. The occupant lies torn in half head barely hanging on by a thread of gristle and fat. Head hurts so bad lights chaotic - Tsuande need her. Vomiting, kneeling, remembering blood between his own legs. Scent of blood and piss sound and he screams screams chakra chaotic enough to cancel the hasty set up of wards. His head splitting apart and he runs, crawls away to die.

…

Well shit.


	3. Chapter 3

The glass shard is long and fragile as spun sugar. It drips with what he'll consider syrup - red and thick and utterly obscene. Kakashi sits upon his hands in mimicry of a blindfolded Naruto - three years old and already beyond sobbing. The child doesn't even twitch - and the older boy laughs as he makes another cut, ignoring how his grip - slips- fucking up his fingers.

"See? You're not a child -" And the scene wavers the old man kneeling to help the toddler up. "See? You're not a little 'un anymore - you're not a child." And the toddler _smiles_ - green eyes bright behind a fringe of sun-bleached hair. "I never went to the beach." And the child - Naruto, forever small and golden, sits beside him.

The older boy is sobbing on the concrete floor, hands tied behind his back. He's only twelve, but just old enough to remember a sky lit up like Tarturus risen from the abyss. "He deserves it. He isn't even _crying_! What little boy doesn't cry?!"

"That was you - the slender one in the dog mask. The leaf has never been one for subtly has it?" Freezing the final Hatake tries to sort - oh. "I like dogs and I am very loyal." The bright blue eyes are contemplative. "Very?" Soft voice and surely even the Kyuubi never looked so predatory. "Goodbye."

The grass is wet beneath him, the sky is huge and dark and clear. His head is ringing. "You. Are. Such. A. PAIN. Uzumaki." His nose is most assuredly _bleeding_. Another marble in the sack and that is three, four, five, six? Seven maybe. The grass is wet and cool and faintly uncomfortable - like his trousers. "How many more?"

'Couldn't tell you Hatake.' And the phantom that for reasons unknown latched on to him somewhere between four and now is smiling down at him. A phantom that at times bares a rather unfortunate resemblance to a very dead little boy named Obito - oh and it only grows darker from there yes… 'Fuck.'

…

_Use it to cut out her lying heart. He'd - he'd read that somewhere… years ago with a wife and child. Ringlets like something of fiction and his teeth had been sharp as he read it aloud. The child had laughed, but - hands at the - glass like glass tumbled over it's self by an alibi made - Hearts and bleeding…. Dying. Cut out her lying heart and he can smell the pulse threading Sakura's life though her willow-like beauty. Knows her. Find her. Kill her._

_Trees and grass and water that smells dirty and cool and familiar as the blood silky has stain, the crevasses of his brain. Memory like a burst in pain as his skin shifts over a metaphorically broken form. Thoughts, or rather - the shards of marginal thoughts are bleeding pass parched lips in a fast croon of a lullaby._

_A lullaby he's sang himself since the locked room days of the orphanage. They never sing to him and he could hate them for that if - strange. A boy with black hair and a girl with pink hair and a great cosmic joke named Uzumaki. A great oh so amusing joke and the punch line - fingernails now claws - the punch line is sleeping in a narrow bed at the hospital._

_Crawling toward the hospital becomes a kind of loping because the crooning is losing the silence where a mind use to be. He really is dying this time and there's not a soul to put him right again. Buildings in moonlight and the smell/sound is greater. Gravel and shadows, linoleum and antiseptics. Her tongue chewed up and swallowed with her eyes like - diamonds? Gems, surely?_

"_I'm not a monster." She is wet and warm and he eats her up entirely. There is fire. There is screaming. He is kneeling on the roof licking his lips. He is running in the forest screaming, screaming because he loved her. Warm and wet and just so much meat. Like veal or deer or maybe they're the same thing. Cave. Sewer, sx handy. Cave where not even Iruka had found him._

…

When the sirens go up he is bending down to grasp another little marble. The bright glow like a heath in the morning, like the dawn on the horizon. Pretty. And then he is gazing at the ocean and wondering whether he cares to come back. It's bright. The light is clear as the oil Anko bright that one time - sweet and warm as it glosses over everything.

The wind kisses his face and startled he realizes he isn't wearing his mask any longer. Laughs startled that he'd forgotten he'd taken it off himself. Lying on a shore as soft and light as a feather or an old bandage a million miles, a thousand years from now with a child is laughing; quite frankly he doesn't want to go "home". And a boy bright as the nimbus of dandelion blond that is his hair races by kicking up sand. Careless it sprints all legs and shrieks as his father gallops behind him smiling like the Cheshire full of brandy-laced milk.

"I never had a son. I've never - no, I've seen the ocean once. I've visited the beach, but never one so clear or so cold. As warm as the sand is, the water is awful cold. His name was Derrick and I loved his mother as well as I could. She died of the Fever and my boy was drowned by the magister for speaking to the fox in the woods." The slender youth speaks with a voice much older then he appears. His eyes are grey.

"Ain't this a bitch?" Obito stands ankle deep in the cobalt waters backlit by the paper-white sky. "Ain't this a bitch?!" And behind them is the sound of a house on fire. A smell of meat and wood and things not meant to be burned, thick and heavy and noxious. "Yes. I killed them all when I returned with the vaccine too many days too late. Derrick was my favorite son… and I truly loved his mother; I don't know why."

Their footsteps mark the sand but he is alone watching the father spin his son by his arms. They whoop with abandon, and he pretends his tears are from the sea spray.

Blinking awake he can still smell the roasted meat, still hear the screaming and the cloying smog brings tears to his eyes. .. Because, because - Because somewhere in his village a building is burning. Oh, oh - the village is burning again. And he almost moves toward it, but - 'He isn't a child!' 'Cry for me little one.' 'Such a tight hot -' "They can deal with it, better to - Naruto uncontrolled is the greater threat right now." And he almost believes it. Almost.

The cave is cold and deep and it smells of despair and rot. Curling up overlong limbs the -_childmanboyfoxlost_- manages to squeeze into the pearl smooth inner cavern. Closing sand-dry eyes it gratefully shuts down never realizing the worst is yet to come red crawling like ruin over its golden skin.


End file.
